The Marshes

A photo I shot of the marshland at the Holbrook Creek in April on my Mamiya C330, medium format camera. 

Along The Way - A Photographic Exhibition By Sam Barker

Along The Way will be the very first solo exhibition I have ever done. I am honored to have it hosted in Kortrijk, Belgium at the Cindy Frey Art Gallery. 

After Cindy approached me about doing it and me of course saying yes, my first thought was "shit, what should the theme be?" working in many different fields and areas of photography, choosing between them proved to be an impossible task. So I have decided to include my favorite shots I have taken along the way over the past few years. It will be a real mixed selection of photographs from time on the road, time at home, posed shoots and experimental work. You can expect to see a bits of everything, portraits, landscapes, skateboarding, digital, film and so on. 

The opening night of Along The Way is on December 1st, and the exhibition will be open for the whole month.

I hope to see as many of you there as possible, I'm real excited for this to say the least!

More on this exhibition soon. Any enquiries about it, please feel free to contact me at sambarker1234@aol.com.

Cindy Frey Art Gallery Facebook Page 

Sam Barker Photography Facebook Page

Viva La Fiesta!

The Fornells fiesta was nothing short of wild, easily one of the best weekends that I ever had. An overdose of music, food, horses & the traditional Menorcan drink called Pomada (gin & lemon), with some crazy Spanish amigos. Here are the photos I took on the Sunday afternoon portion of it, possibly the only time I was sober...

Tramontana cliffs

Here is a photo I took whilst walking along the cliffs on the north of the island. Nothing to exciting, just very baron and almost desert like... very calm waters to, a very tranquil day.

Why Ben Raemers Is Awesome...

He goes to Saffron Walden skate park, an incredible park which pretty much gets rinsed daily, and pulls out an NBD on the thing thats probably hardest to skate there. This time around it was a slightly over vert, pivot to fakie... how? I dont know, it's Raemers, amazing things happen when he's on a board. I shot this at the start of the summer. Enjoi!

Ideals, "Eyes Open" stills

As promised, here are a selection of photos I shot during the recording of Ideals music video for there song "Eyes Open".

I also shot some portraits of the band and created the first image on this post using a landscape photo I shot in February.

The last photo is Nick Williamson getting his directing shoes on. They are a good fit.

Ideals, Eyes Open - Music video

So earlier this year around the beginning of march, my friend and Ideals drummer, Ben Ward, asked if I might be interested in making a music video for the band. It was only a few days later talking to my best friend, Nick Williamson, that I realized Ben had approached him about the project as well. We decided to work on something together, not really knowing when it would happen, but knowing it would. 

After a lot of talking with Ben, I soon realized the band wanted something home grown, organic and relatively simple. So instead of a fancy studio in London, I arranged to shoot at a couple of locations in the bands (& mine and Nicks) home town of Ipswich.

We shot a big part of it in a friends empty, soon to be open bar/restaurant on the Ipswich docks. This currently nameless and under construction bar/restaurant was the perfect place to shoot, we transformed this huge empty space with lights, projectors and of course the band.

The other big part of the video we shot in Ipswich's renowned Swan Pub, a place where Ideals and many other bands and artists have played over the years. The bar is probably most famous for the Mumford & Sons show right before the band really took off. And also for Ipswich local singer/songwriter, Ed Sheeran, who has played here regularly over the years, and his last gig at the pub as support for Dels at the end of 2010 echos the same story as Mumford & Sons, as it was right before he REALLY took off!

So to pay homage to The Swan and it's deep roots in music, we shot in their infamous attic deep into the night. The small run down and unused room, with wooden floors as old as the building itself oozes character. Again, simply with a couple of lights and some creative sparks, we really made it into something even more special.

I shot a lot of photos over the course of the night to, as well as some sequences which Nick very cleverly incorporated into the video. I will post the photos up later on this week along with some new portraits of the band to.

I'm thrilled to have worked with a band which I'm not only a fan of, but have been friends with since school days. It's also been a great thing for me to get to work on such a good project with my best friend, Nick. This is our first project together since my skate video in 2007, let's hope its not so long until next time.

Any way, here is the finished video. Please watch it, share it and above all enjoy it. It's a great song. In my opinion one of their best.

Ideals- Eyes Open

Thanks to the following people for helping make this happen- 
Nick Williamson, Joe Halls, Callum Hewitt, Tom Barker & Hannah Maynard.


Ideals are-
Andrew Major, Ben Ward, Simon Wilson & Ben Smith.


Ideals- Facebook
Sam Barker Photography- Facebook
Williamson Film- Tumblr
The Swan- Facebook

Boys

A photo from my Mamiya C330, good old fashioned medium format film. Fuck Instagram.
Two of my favorite skateboarding amigos, Mark Kendrick (left) and Brendon Brunning (right) before going skating on a nice day in Ipswich last year.